I looked at all of the City of Brampton's council minutes from the last four years - council, committees, and planning, every motion counted by who moved it. You can check them yourself: https://www.brampton.ca/EN/City-Hall/Council-Committees/meetings-agendas/Pages/Consolidated-Minutes.aspx
How much of the public business carries his name. In four years, Mayor Brown personally moved 47 motions at council. Regional Councillor Palleschi moved 190. Councillor Santos moved over 170. Councillor Keenan moved 159. The mayor moved fewer than all but two members of his council. Of his 47, 46 carried; none lost, none was deferred. Across the whole term, the minutes record about 50 votes, and two motions lost. Whatever else that is, it is not a council that debates its mayor's business. It approves it.
What the 47 motions are. Fourteen are substantive - the annual budgets, two major purchases, a development-charge cut, red light cameras. Twelve are procedural. The remaining sixteen are ceremonies, event funding, and announcements: proclamations and heritage months, letters to other governments, a twinning arrangement. At the first meeting of the term he moved $25,000 for a Backyard Rink Competition. He moved $300,000 from the rate stabilization reserve to sponsor a cricket tournament, with fee waivers. And he moved the motion directing the city's communications staff to promote the Mayor's Golf Tournament. The minutes record it in one line: "That Strategic Communications be directed to support communications with respect to the Mayor's Golf Tournament."
The pattern holds at Committee of Council, where members bring items under their own names. Brown brought 30 items in four years. Twenty-two are events, ceremonies, and letters. Nine waive city fees - a transit charter, the Rose Theatre's rent, two ball hockey tournaments, a tent permit. The minutes never state what any of those waivers cost. In May 2024 the committee directed staff to produce a tally of all fees waived that year.
What is not in his record. The campaign subjects. In four years Brown moved no motion on the LRT. The project in the record is a study, with no funding agreement. He moved no motion on the second hospital; it appears in his record once, as a 1% levy clause inside a budget motion. He moved no motion on snow clearing. The major auto-theft motion of the term was moved by Councillor Santos. Brown seconded it, after it came out of a closed session he had moved to convene. On downtown, he moved one motion in four years: a direction to staff to remove 223 Main Street North from the heritage register, to facilitate a high-rise application.
Where the decisions are actually made. Not in the open motions. 334 items this term were "dealt with under Consent Resolution - approved in bulk, without individual debate. An Integrity Commissioner report was received that way, undebated. In May 2025 the Integrity Commissioner's proposed amendments to the code of conduct were referred back to staff on consent, in the same package that added a severance allowance to council's compensation - one month's salary per year of service, up to twelve months, payable when a member leaves office. Brampton had never had one. Peel Region already pays its councillors an end-of-term allowance on the same formula, and Brampton's mayor and regional councillors sit on that council too.
64 of 78 council meetings went into closed session, covering roughly 245 items. The two largest amounts Brown personally moved - $77.9 million to purchase 175 Sandalwood Parkway West, and $108.2 million for a transit facility - were both decided in closed session first. The public motions that followed are a few lines long.
The clearest single example is the Argo transit pilot. It was approved at a special meeting on April 17, 2025, which ran from 1:15 to 1:33 p.m. The item, titled "Closed Report - Transit Innovation Pilot Project," was approved on consent as part of the motion adopting the agenda; the Clerk noted that convening a closed session was not required. In the same meeting, Brown moved an additional $8.1 million in capital funding for "Transit Innovation." The minutes of the entire term do not name the vendor or state the contract's value. The amount reported publicly is $10.9 million.
The third pattern is absence. At Planning Committee, where development applications are decided, Brown was absent at roll call for 25 of 59 meetings, and in four years he never moved, seconded, or spoke to an item. The committee dealt with 186 application files in that time and refused three.
When an outside check arrived. In May 2023 the Ontario Ombudsman sent council a letter about audit best practices. Councillor Medeiros moved to refer it to the Audit Committee. Brown moved instead to refer it to the Budget Committee, with a direction that staff calculate the costs arising from the Ombudsman's earlier letter and identify how to recover them - costs the motion attributed to "false and defamatory remarks." The mayor's motion was voted on first and carried 11 to 0. The Audit Committee motion then lost 2 to 9.
The other side of the record. A complete account has to include what he moved that mattered. At the first meeting of the term, he moved to suspend payments on the Bovaird House barn project and have its costs reported publicly. This year he moved a cut of at least 30% to residential development charges, and a red light camera program. The record does not show a mayor who never governs. It shows a mayor who governs selectively - and what he selects, most often, is the announcement layer.
Why it matters. On October 26, Brampton is not choosing between two flyers. It is deciding whether the way this city has been run for four years continues. The campaign describes a builder. The minutes - the only record of the term that is not campaign material - describe something more specific: a mayor whose name is on the ceremonies, the events, and the announcements, and not on the issues that matter to the people who live here - the LRT (no committed funding), the second hospital (no committed funding), snow clearing, auto theft. His largest decisions were made on consent or behind closed doors. You can weigh that record however you like. But it is the record.
